In September 2009, volunteers started to gut the musty, leaky building, Scott said. They ripped out old walls so new rooms could be designed. Then the helpers took five months off until funding was secured.

Camilleri called the renovation "upwards of a million-dollar project," a lot of which has been covered by donated help. Scott said from 80 percent to 90 percent of the labor has been donated, with most of it coming from fellow members at Granger Community Church. That, plus the volunteer help of architects Kevin and Aimee Buccellato and skilled laborers, is all worth more than $65,000 over the past two years, Willson said.

A lot of suppliers donated materials or sold them at cost. Scott said it wasn't hard to beg for it: "People want to help."

He also knew people from when the church transformed some old storefronts on Western Avenue into the Monroe Circle Community Center a few years ago.

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This renovation is supported by a $305,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which also was used to buy a van to transport veterans. The city of South Bend gave $50,000 for the project, too, Willson said.

Veterans Affairs also will provide up to $28.90 per veteran per day, which will pay part of the operating costs, she said. The Center for the Homeless will have to raise another $75,000 to $100,000 to run the center each year, Camilleri said.

One man's vision

Robert L. Miller Sr., the 90-year-old who bought the building for the center, coined his own adjective for the veterans: DOL. Down on their luck.

The retired judge and retired lieutenant commander of the U.S. Naval Reservesstarted Miller's Vets, a group of homeless vets who dress in military gear and do military drills and ceremonies. He's set up a cemetery plot for DOL vets, too. Now he foresees teams of four volunteers who would track down DOL veterans, take them to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and get them identification cards that verify they are veterans.

"I won't rest until they're all registered," he said.

Then he said he hopes local businesses would jump in to support the veterans who present the ID cards with, for example, a two-for-one deal at a fast-food restaurant.

"I don't know a merchant that doesn't want to help veterans," Miller said. "The trouble is: They don't know who they are."

This past spring, Miller said, the University of Notre Dame invited 10 alumni associations across Indiana to clone the Miller's Vets programs in their communities. As he explains this, he dreams of seeing it spread across the country -- and his eyes well up with tears.